New Hampshire Theatre Project presents the 2017 Intelligent Theatre Festival, the fifth annual festival of playreadings and discussion. This year’s theme is Matters of Importance as each script focuses on social, political and cultural issues that prompt difficult conversations both personally and in community.

Two scripts will be read on Friday, March 31 at 7 pm. Throw Away People by Mary Ellen Hedrick was the fourth runner-up in the recent “30 Pages in 30 Days” playwriting contest hosted by Prescott Park Arts Festival. Directed by Kate Kirkwood, Throw Away People focuses on the devastating consequences of heroin addiction for both individuals and the community. Crystal Gould will direct The New Abnormal, written by high schools students Josh Goldberg, Ella McGrail, Colleen Spear and Natalie Viebrock in NHTP’s recent Teen Playwriting Intensive. Both hilarious and poignant, this play illuminates the multiple pressures affecting today’s young men and women. Friday night’s post-reading discussion will be facilitated by consultant Effie Malley, former director of the NH Children’s Behavioral Health Collaborative and a center director for the National Center for Youth Suicide Prevention.

On Saturday, April 1 at 7 pm, NHTP artistic director Genevieve Aichele will direct Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, adapted by Arthur Miller. Written in 1882, Ibsen’s controversial script addresses challenges that are still highly relevant today, including environmental issues versus economic interests, professional responsibilities, the role of the press in determining public policy, and the moral dilemmas and tensions involved in whistle blowing. Kathleen Somssich, host of WSCA’s political talk show Seacoast Currents, will facilitate the discussion.

CJ Lewis will direct Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz on Sunday, April 2 at 2 pm. A finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Other Desert Cities centers around a family with differing political views and a long-hidden secret about to be revealed in the daughter’s soon-to-be-published book of memoirs. The discussion will be facilitated by CJ Lewis and the cast of professional seacoast actors, including Genevieve Aichele, Adam LaFramboise, Colleen Madden, Peter Motson and Kathleen Somssich.

NHTP’s 2017 Intelligent Theatre Festival is sponsored by Emilie Spaulding, author of Red Clay Girl, a book of memoirs that is a “heartbreaking, hilarious, and tenacious story of a middle child's journey from small town Georgia to New York City and beyond.”

The NHTP Intelligent Theatre Festival was created in 2013 to engage artists and audiences in a collaborative conversation about the art of playwriting and theatre; to showcase scripts that NHTP is unable to present in a fully realized production; and to offer community members and professional artists the opportunity to work and learn together.